Cover Story: Ready for a raid?
1 Apr, 2009 By: Marty Whitford Landscape ManagementPhoenix-Based Handyman Maintenance Inc. (HMI) is no stranger to "the morning circus" — getting its landscaping crews ready for the day's work, ensuring they have their paperwork and project details in hand, and the people, trucks, equipment and materials to do their jobs. But HMI's morning circus got a lot crazier on Feb. 11.
 Abel Arana clearly was not a fan of the immigration raid conducted at the Phoenix headquarters of Handyman Maintenance Inc. (HMI) in February. His son was one of 59 suspected undocumented HMI workers arrested in that shakedown by the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office. |
Shortly before 6 a.m. that day, dozens of deputies from the Maricopa County (AZ) Sheriff's Office (MCSO) swarmed the site, executing search warrants in a raid aimed at apprehending suspected undocumented workers and/or illegal immigrants. What followed were several hours of questioning of more than 100 HMI employees ordered into single-file lines. The raid netted 59 workers suspected of violating immigration laws — 19 whom the MCSO turned over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and another 40 currently residing in MCSO Sheriff Joe Arpaio's much-publicized Tent City. They're first awaiting trial for felony identity theft charges.
 Tunnel more traveled |
Julie Pace, an attorney representing HMI and a partner with Phoenix-based Ballard Spahr, says the raid terrified quite a few HMI employees and their families, as well as people passing by. According to Pace and local news reports, several MCSO deputies drew their guns, slamming some HMI employees against cars and pushing others to the ground, questioning whether they had their documentation — proof they are U.S. citizens or authorized to work in the United States — on their persons.
 Unauthorized U.S. residents by countries of origin (as of January 2007) |
"When we're going into a place with 109 people, with [more than 60] suspected felons, into an area where we don't know what's behind the door, I will use any method to make sure my people are safe and protected," Arpaio adamantly maintains.
However, Alfredo Gutierrez, former Arizona state senator (now an activist with the Hispanic advocacy group Somos America/We Are America Coalition), alleges MCSO deputies practice racial profiling and violated some HMI employees' civil rights.
"They arrived in mass, heavily armed, as if they were surrounding an Al-Qaeda camp," Gutierrez says. "And they stormed in, and they grabbed ... [59] gardeners!"
The raid at HMI was the latest in a series of at least eight incidents across the country tying Green Industry companies to the hiring of undocumented and/or illegal immigrants. (See "Timeline of troubling tales") Like it or not, federal agents and local law enforcement are clamping down on landscape contractors and other business owners employing illegal immigrants. And case after case is proving that the shackles cuff both ways —landscape contractors not only can lose their employees and business licenses, but if they knowingly hire illegal immigrants they also can be fined hundreds of thousands of dollars and serve several years in prison.
 Timeline of troubling tales |
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